Kyle McGovern

August 18, 2014 –
In 1994, the distinction between "mainstream" and "alternative" evaporated. Green Day and the Offspring brought hook-heavy punk to the Billboard charts, middle-of-the-road acts such as Soul Asylum and Live helped calcify "alt-rock" into a blockbuster radio format, and Nirvana's fate as future classic-rock legends was sealed with Kurt Cobain's death. Beck rebranded "loser" as a badge of honor and Trent Reznor said he wanted to... well, you know. Plenty of songs had a hand in making '94 alternative's biggest year — we've ranked the 100 best. [Ed's note: We limited it to one song per artist.]
Stick with us for the full countdown, and stream every one of the tracks highlighted (minus a small handful) on our Spotify playlist, found on the No. 1 slide.
This is the first installment in SPIN's look back at 1994, a watershed year for alternative culture.

August 12, 2014 –
Following news that Robin Williams died at age 63, comedian Marc Maron has dusted off an old interview he did with the legendary comic and actor for a 2010 installment of his WTF podcast. "That conversation is what defined this show from that point on and what defined my life in a lot of ways," Maron says in a new intro he recorded for the episode, which has been behind a paywall for years. "It seemed to be that he was ready to talk for almost the first time in his life in a way that he'd never talked publicly before. And I was happy to be there for it." Williams, who died on Monday of an apparent suicide, was one of the first high-profile guests to appear on WTF—back in April 2010, Maron's twice-weekly program was less than a year old and not yet the juggernaut it has since become.

August 12, 2014 –
The tagline for the upcoming fifth and final season of HBO's Boardwalk Empire is "No One Goes Quietly," a sentiment that's reflected in the new trailer for the Prohibition-era drama. As expected, the 80-second preview delivers gangsters wearing three-piece suits and serious faces, flashes of gunfire, and Steve Buscemi's Nucky Thompson promising swift and severe revenge against a new enemy. Somewhat less expected, though, is the sound of the Killers' "Tranquilize," which scores the promo clip.The song—a Lou Reed-featuring standout from the Killers' 2007 B-sides and rarities collection Sawdust—is a much flashier and more modern musical cue for the dapper-but-dour TV show. In the past, Boardwalk producers have favored period-appropriate tunes: St. Vincent and the National's Matt Berninger, for instance, covered 1920s ditties for 2013's Boardwalk Empire Volume 2 compilation.

August 8, 2014 –
Lil Wayne and Drake enter the ring for their co-headlining tour tonight, and in honor of the joint venture's kick-off, the hip-hop giants have shared their latest collaboration, a new track called "Grindin." With its light touches of gleaming piano, the double-billed song maintains the same sort of low-key tempo found on Drizzy and Weezy's other recent team-up, "Believe Me." Wayne stresses how busy he's been lately—"Fuck 007, I work 24/7"—and rightly so: The New Orleans king has been occupied with plotting the rap battle-themed tour with Drake, prepping their Street Fighter-inspired phone app, becoming a sports agent, dropping singles for his long-awaited Tha Carter V LP, and getting ready to release another eight albums by the end of 2015. We're a bit skeptical about that last one, but right now, we're happy to keep "Grindin" above.

August 8, 2014 –
Kanye West recently hinted that his next single could drop any day now. That highly anticipated track still hasn't been set loose, but the Internet has coughed up another 'Ye-related gem: a snippet of the unreleased music video for "Robocop," one of the finest track's from West's 2008 sad-bastard opus, 808s & Heartbreak. As XXL points out, a 13-second clip of the stop-motion video has been uploaded to Instagram by Shiran Barbee, a CG modeler who worked on the project. The leaked footage finds Kanye decked out in a tuxedo, face-to-face with then-girlfriend Amber Rose, whose face is superimposed onto a nude, life-sized robot/doll—think Barbie meets, uh, Robocop. As for why this video never officially saw the light, Consequence of Sound cites a very reliable source (i.e. "Internet gossip"), saying that Kanye chose to bury the piece after he and Rose broke up.

August 8, 2014 –
Over the last few weeks, Jack White has shown plenty of love to other artists. He complimented Julian Casablancas' fashion sense at New York City's Governors Ball, covered Metallica's "Enter Sandman" at Glastonbury, fiddled with a bluesy rendition of Kanye West's "Black Skinhead" in Dublin, interpolated the White Stripes' "Icky Thump" with Jay Z's "99 Problems" in Louisville, played his own version of Lorde's "Royals" in Milwaukee, and assisted Beck with a string of songs in Providence.But this past weekend, rapper Vic Mensa paid tribute to Mr. White's best-known song—yes, we're talking about the unofficial anthem of this year's World Cup, "Seven Nation Army." While playing a hometown show at Chicago's Grant Park for Lollapalooza, Mensa marched into a booming rendition of the Elephant opener.

August 6, 2014 –
Marvel Studios maintained its stranglehold on the box office this past weekend with the genuinely delightful Guardians of the Galaxy. The Chris Pratt-powered vehicle—part sci-fi action flick, part sci-fi comedy—brought in $94.3 million during its opening weekend, the biggest debut ever for an August release, according to Box Office Mojo. There are several factors that contributed to the blockbuster's commercial and critical success: Pratt's Han Solo-ish charisma; the movie's vivid color palette; a rarely better Bradley Cooper voicing a trigger-happy, Napoleonic raccoon; a never-better Vin Diesel voicing a talking (albeit monosyllabic) tree.And, of course, there's the soothing effect of the film's '70s-heavy soundtrack.

July 30, 2014 –
Well, this should get the rumor mill churning: Former Nirvana drummer Chad Channing has said he'd be willing to reunite with the iconic band's other surviving members. In an interview with the NME, Channing said he wouldn't be opposed to reviving Nirvana with Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic at some point in the future.Asked if he'd ever join the alt-rock legends onstage, Channing, who currently leads the band Before Cars, said, "Yeah, if they wanted me to. It'd maybe be something like Dave playing guitar and singing and Krist doing bass.

July 30, 2014 –
A new week brings a new batch of albums to stream. Follow the links below to hear the latest releases from Spoon, Gucci Mane, Best New Artist honorees Naomi Punk, singer-songwriter Christopher Denny, and more. 1) Spoon, They Want My Soul. "It doesn't serve much function to ask where They Want My Soul fits into Spoon’s career-long worst-to-best rankings, partly because nobody can agree on what the best Spoon album is... and partly because every album is, in one way or another, of a piece with every other album. And that's what you need to know the most about They Want My Soul: It's a practiced and confident piece of power-pop from a band that plays every instrument like a drum, with a singer who can project swagger even through a hungover growl." — Stereogum (via iTunes First Play)2) Twin Peaks, Wild Onion.

July 17, 2014 –
St. Vincent took over the legendary Ed Sullivan Theater on Wednesday to play the latest installment of the Live on Letterman webcast series. Annie Clark and co. tore through a total of 11 songs, most of which appear on this year's Essential St. Vincent LP (one of the 50 Best Albums of 2014... So Far), and a handful of which date back to 2011's Strange Mercy. Even if you've already seen St. Vincent on Saturday Night Live, The Colbert Report, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, Clark's guitar prowess demands attention. Watch her perform in the video above, and check out the Late Show With David Letterman tonight, July 17, to see her return to the Sullivan stage.St. Vincent's Live on Letterman set list:"Rattlesnake""Digital Witness""Cruel""Marrow""Every Tear Disappears""Surgeon""Cheerleader""Prince Johnny""Huey Newton""Regret""Birth in Reverse"